Flowers for Mother's Day

I know I'm a little late with this post, but Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

I was planning on doing a self-portrait over the weekend. I figured my mom would like that as a present and I can also enter it in the American Artist magazine's self-portrait competition. But I didn't get around to it. Instead Rebecca and I set up a still-life (She has to do some paintings for an upcoming show in Massachusetts):


We spent most of the day scouring Astoria for interesting things to paint. Unfortunately we couldn't find anything so we settled on some flowers. A lot of flowers.


I didn't spend too much time on this. And it shows.


But it was fun to break out the oils.
Plus my mom loves flowers too.


This upcoming weekend I'll do that self-portrait and put up more info on the AA competition.

Dogs Walk Against Cancer

I'm sorry for rehashing old artwork posts for the last few months. I'm in the home stretch for my deadline and hopefully afterwards I'll have a little time for some good old fashioned painting. For this post I dug up some photos from a year back.

On May 4th I'm getting together with a bunch of talented Artist friends of mine to help out Joan Chiverton at the Annual Dogs Walk Against Cancer in Riverside Park on the West Side of Manhattan. Joan organized a bunch of us artists to help her draw and paint portraits and caricatures of dogs at the Dog Walk. We charge $20 per portrait and all proceeds go toward Cancer Research. This will be my 3rd year helping Joan out. Last year we raised over $1,600.

Here are some pics from the last two years:
2006

Myself, Angel Ramirez and David Hollenbach


Joan


Me and my subject.


2007

Dennis Deitrich


Me confused about my next move.


Stephen Gardner (and Steve's Blog)


And once again, Joan

I'm Thinking of Offering Prints of My Work.

Happy Tax Day Everybody!

Over the weekend, while juggling freelance work and a bad sinus infection, I realized that I still haven't done my taxes. While crunching numbers and counting receipts I had another thing on my mind. Recently I've had a few requests for prints of my paintings. My originals on my "Nude of the Day" blog are already pretty affordable, but some of my Illustration work and other Fine Art work may not be. I'd like to offer some prints but I'm not sure of the best way to go about it. My main concern is the quality of the print and its longevity. I ordered a sample pack of Hahnemühle rag papers (tax write off!), and I'm planning to do some test prints with Epson UltraChrome Ink, which I hear is an industry standard. Does anyone have any other suggestions for quality printing?

Here are some images I'm thinking of offering up:

"Welcome to the Beginning of the End"


"Tiffany Wearing a Feathered Hat"


"Rest (Reclining Nude)"

Are there any particular paintings that you would like a print of? Help me choose. Anyone that sells prints and has some helpful advice on how to go about it, please chime in. If these prints turn out to be a successful business venture maybe it will justify all my tax write offs. ;)



Also, I'll be hanging out at the New York Comic Con this weekend. My friend Steve Belledin has an artists table in the Artists Alley so I'm sure I'll be hanging around there for extended periods of time. Stop by and say hello to the both of us.

My New Studio

I just moved to a new apartment with my girlfriend Rebecca Silvers. We have a separate room that we're using as our new studio. Two of the four walls are made up of windows so it's ideal for painting.



And there's an awesome view of the Triborough Bridge.



A HUGE thanks to Rusty Zimmerman, Audrey Castillo, Stef Daehler, Aviv Arad, Polina Roytman, and Jason Bennett for helping us move.

StumbleUpon: Slacking for Inspiration/Self-Promotion

I'm all out of Moleskines to post up. Also, I'm way too busy packing up my stuff to move to my new place this weekend, so new art from me will be pretty scarce for the next few weeks.

I do want to mention my new addiction on the InterTubes; StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon lets you "channel-surf the Internet". You install a toolbar with the Stumble button and load up websites according to your specified interests. If you like a page you give it a thumbs up and you have an option of writing a review of said website. If you don't like a site you give it a thumbs down and SU will load up something else. There is also the act of "discovering" new websites - giving a thumbs up to a website not in SU's database and being the first to review it. This is something along the lines of discovering new bands and SU users build up their rank by discovering new sites. Along with this there's a social networking aspect to the site where you can befriend SU users and Stumble their favorites and be informed of new discoveries. You can join groups and talk in forums about favorite topics.

Because "Stumbling" is a response to visual stimuli, the majority of SU users are drawn to visual content such as photographs and artwork. There are members whose Stumbles have themes much like an art or photography blog would. I'm addicted to certain user's profiles and use their Stumbles to get the creative juices flowing. Here's a quick sketch inspired by a photograph found through StumbleUpon:



SU is also great for exposure. A few months ago a member of the StubleUpon community linked to one of my Moleskine posts and sent over 200 visitors my way. Same thing happened on my "Nude of the Day" blog. Since then I've been exploring StumbleUpon and it's potential to increase my blog's audience. Although my presence is still in it's infancy, I hope to become a regular when time permits. If you're a SU user feel free to check out my profile and add me as your friend.